


Dining with the Danverses

by Silent-Wordsmith (Shatteredsand)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Cannibalism, F/F, Feeding Your Friends and Family Murderers for Fun and Profit, Food Porn, Food is People, I Mean It IS Because Alex But..., It Isn't Cannibalism If One of Them's an Alien, POV Multiple, does this count as
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-16 18:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21040682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteredsand/pseuds/Silent-Wordsmith
Summary: Kara bakes. Alex cooks. And, if they decide they like you enough, they'll share what they've made.





	1. Eliza Danvers

**Author's Note:**

> 'Tis the season, after all...

Eliza comes home from a long, exhausting day expecting to be greet with the scent of pizza grease or pork fried rice or the inevitable possibility, likelihood even, of both. She knows that's her fault, that she should be making more of an effort to home in time for dinner, to not depend on the availability of fast food take-out and delivery. her girls need her more than the lab does, she knows that, but she misses her husband and spending time in their home without him hurts. It's cowardly, to run away from his ghost, to hide herself in her lab and her work, but she's trying. She's not always succeeding, but she is always, always _trying_.

It's the least she can do for her daughters.

Her daughters who have, apparently, not used her absence to order a truly ungodly amount of nutritionally lacking junk food for dinner. Eliza can hear the sound of sizzling meat and boiling water, smell actual herbs and spices, the moment she walks in the door. It's unexpected and a little painful--Jeremiah had been the cook in the family, leaving Eliza free to dominate dessert, and coming home to a home-cooked meal now echoes with a hundred memories of him--but it's nice. A good hurt.

"Girls?"

"Kitchen!" Alex shouts back at the same time that Kara speeds into the front hall and wraps her in a welcome home hug that, miraculously, doesn't break any bones.

"Alex is making Hamburger Helper." Kara informs her, bouncing slightly, when she lets go. "It smells amazing."

"It does." It smells like boxed seasoning, mostly, but that isn't bad. It's better than another order of pizza and pot stickers, that's for sure. Besides, Alex is seventeen, expecting anything complex would be asking a bit much. Especially since it's not like Eliza ever tried to teach her. While Jeremiah had, he was a homegrown , comfort food man, with a strong preference for quick and easy meals. It's no surprise that Alex is the same.

Alex pokes her head out of the kitchen as Eliza and Kara wander into the living room. "it's just simmering to thicken up now. So, like, two minutes? Maybe five."

"Finally! I'm starving," Kara grouses dramatically.

"You had, like, eleven quarts of ramen at five," Alex deadpans.

"That was _four hours_ ago, Alex."

"You're disgusting; why do I even like you?"

Eliza can help but be relieved by the gently teasing tone, the amusement in their bickering. For a while there she thought they were going to hate each other forever.

She's never been so glad to be wrong.

"Kara," Eliza interrupts the ongoing banter. "Why don't you set the table, since Alex cooked for us?"

"Sure." A whirlwind of motion, and a second later the table is set, including two glasses of Coke and a third filled with red wine. And, really, she should probably chastise Kara for that little display of alien power, but she's tired and her daughter made her dinner and she's going to take a brief break from being The Ultimate Authority over a teenaged alien refugee to enjoy this meal with her girls.

"Kara, powers," Alex reprimands in Eliza's stead.

Kara sticks her tongue out at her sister, and pouts spectacularly, but doesn't say anything in response. Eliza shouldn't be surprised anymore. In the years since Kenny's death brought them together for the first time, they've gotten closer than close.  
Alex's head darts back into the kitchen, presumably to check on whether or not the food is finished. Eliza doesn't smell smoke or hear any ominous noises, so she decides to trust that Alex has it all well in hand. She slips into her seat at the head of the table and takes a small sip of her wine, the last of the tension from her over-long day eking out of her.

Alex brings out the big skillet mere moments later, placing it with certainty on the pot-holder in the center of the table and whipping the lid of to reveal her efforts. A delightful aroma of spiced meat and bacon and cheese wafts through the air and a well of pride bubbles in Eliza's chest. It's nothing more than a boxed recipe, but her daughter made it.

Kara claps excitedly, and Eliza is pretty sure she's speed-talking through a chant that boils down to "Foodfoodfoodfood!" Which is, honestly, just adorable. To exactly no one's surprise, Kara is the first to grab the serving spoon and start dishing out servings. Also to no one's surprise, Kra's portion is easily three times the size of her human dining companions.

"It smells so good! I'm excited. Are you excited?" Kara looks to Alex. "You should be excited. Be excited, Alex."

"I am the epitome of enthusiasm," Alex drawls, completely deadpan.

Kara pouts again, for a second, but can hold it very long with option of shoveling forkfuls of pasta and hamburger covered in cheese sauce into her mouth. She hums happily with every bite, and Eliza sees no reason not to follow her example. If slightly more sedately. After all, unlike her alien daughter, Eliza could choke if she put that much food in her mouth at once.

It's _good._

She doesn't mean to sound so surprised, even in her own head, but she is. Not by the fact that it is, but how good it is. It certainly doesn't taste like any store bought boxed dinner she's ever had.  
"This is delicious, sweetie," Eliza compliments, the pride in her chest only growing at Alex's success.

"Mmhmm!" Kara agrees, mouth still full of an improbably large amount of food.

"It's okay, I guess." Alex shrugs, her eyes staring into her bowl and a flush coloring the tips of her ears. "Thanks."

Oh, her sweet girl. Eliza wants to flutter and reassure and reinforce, but seventeen years of knowing Alex means she knows that will only make Alex dig her heels in more thoroughly. The more effusive the praise, the less likely Alex is to believe that they're not just telling her what she wants to hear.

"Did you do something special with the meat?" she asks, instead, because it tastes different than she's used to.

"It's ground bison," Alex offers. "I wanted to see if it would taste the same."

"It doesn't," Kara tells her, now that she's finished swallowing. "It's _way_ better."

"Cool," Alex brushes off the praise again, then adds, "i'll make it more often then, maybe."

"That sounds wonderful." Eliza smiles, trying to convey her pride and appreciation with a look instead of words. Hoping that Alex has an easier time accepting the praise that way.

"Sure. Whatever."

Eliza decides it's time to pulls Alex out of the center of attention and changes the subject to their weekend plans. The rest of dinner is spent with pleasant, pointless conversation.

At the end of the night, there isn't even a spoonful left over.


	2. Clark Kent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies to anyone who saw the roughest, unedited draft that I accidentally uploaded in the midst of trying to edit it.

Clark is late. It's Kara's gradulation party, and he's late. Because he's always late. Why is he always late? He has super-speed and flight; he should be able to make it to a family celebrationon time. But there had been that factory fire, and the seventeen car pile-up, and twenty-three muggings across six states--there's a lot of crime in America, okay, and he usually tries to stay in his city, but if he's already flying through it feels negligent to just ignore it--so he thinks he's got something of an excuse.

When he manages to land and quick-change, he's twenty minutes late and a block away. Alex is going to _murder_ him. She's never been his biggest fan, and showing up nearly half an hour late to a celebration in Kara's honor is not the way to curry her favor. He speed walks at a mostly human pace the rest of the way, rehearsing a litany of apologies in his head.

Kara has opened the door and rushed out to meet him before he's more than halfway down the street, laughing and smiling and hugging him as tightly as only she can.

"Hey, cuz," he says, hugging her back just as tightly. He loves his family and his friends, but there's something especially nice about hugging someone he doesn't have to worry about accidentally breaking in half if he gets too enthusiastic. God, he should make more of an effort to get out here more often. Or unclench a little and agree to let Kara fly out to see him and Lois in Metropolis. He thinks they'd like each other, and he and Lois are starting to get to the level of serious that includes things like meeting family members and revealing alien super-secrets. "Missed you."

"Missed you more." Kara gives him an extra squeeze, strong enough that he actually feels himself lose his breath. Jesus, she's so strong. "Come on, Alex is just getting ready to start grilling."

"Oh, good! I thought I was late." He checks his watch, and, yeah, no, he is late.

"You totally are," Kara teases, bumping her shoulder into him. "But Alex was expecting you to be late, so."

Clark grimaces. Yep, stellar impression he's making on Kara's most favorite being on the planet. Doesn't visit enough and always late when he does. No wonder she doesn't like him all that much.

It'll be fine. He can be charming. Sometimes....

Lois thinks he can be charming, sometimes. And Eliza's always liked him; she'll help him out if he sticks his foot too far in his mouth, surely.

He'll just be on his best behavior tonight. Win Alex over with what Lois calls his "sweet, farmboy charm" and his "painfully sincere earnestness". Those are good qualities, right? Right.

The house isn't what he'd been expecting. Mostly because he hadn't been expecting a house at all, really. He remembers his first place out of college, a shitty one bedroom shoebox apartment with peeling paint and leaky faucents, and this is emphatically not that. This is, while modestly sized, a real house. It even has a small plot of front yard, nigh unheard of this deep in the city. And, sure, yeah, he knows that she's sharing it with Alex, but it's still massively impressive for her first place.

"This is nice," he compliments as they make their way inside. Because his ma raised him right, and because it really is. Soft and homey in a way that he associates with his occasional calls with Kara and not at all with any of his interactions with Alex.

"Thanks, we like it. Everyone's in the back," she adds, leading through the house towards the back door.

Their backyard is less yard and more a small patio with just enough grass beyond it that a little dog or young puppy could probably use it to do their business. They're nearly in the heart of National City, though, not a suburb, so it's not that surprising. In fact, it's more surprising that there's a backyard at all.

In the far corner furthest from the door stands Alex, manning a medium-sized grill. The smell of burning charcoal and wood chips mingles with the delicious scent of cooking meat, a hint of hickory in the smoke, and Clark feels his mouth start to water. It's been a while since he's had a good, old-fashioned cookout. There's not a lot of time or room for it in Metropolis, and he doesn't get back to the farm as often as he used to.  
Kara heads over to Alex immediately, wrapping her arms around her foster sister's waist and resting her chen on her shoulder. It's cute, so Clark lets them have their moment and directs himself over to where Eliza is sitting in the single lawn chair and drinking sweet tea.

"Dr. Danvers, it's lovely to see you again."

"Clark, I've told you before, you're family. Call me Eliza."

"Yes, ma'am, I'll work on that." Clark ducks his heazd sheepishly, fairly certain that he'll never be able to call his former professor by her given name, no matter how long they've know each other or how many years pass since she'd been his teacher. A quick glance over towards the sisters shows that they're still hugging, so Clark kills a little time offering to top up Eliza's tea.

"Thank you, dear." Eliza holds out the glass. "Go right after the door and then left through the dining room; can't miss it."

The kitchen is as easy to find as promised, no x-ray vision cheating required, and he's back outside in short order. He delivers Eliza's tea with a smile, before heading over to Alex, who has finally been released from Kara's grasp.

"Hey, Alex, how've you been?"

"Good. Busy." Alex answers, distracted by monitoring the grilling meat. "You? How's Lois; she dump your sorry ass yet?"

"Oh, no," Clark chuckles. "Not yet. Hopefully not ever. We're both doing fine. Lois might be getting another Pulitizer."

"The Intergang piece?" Alex asks, thoughtflly. Clark honestly didn't think Alex read their articles. Most of the the Daily Planet's articles, after all, are about things that take place on the other side of the country from National City, and anything big enough to be national news would inevitably picked up by the Tribune.

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one." Clark puffs up with pride in his girlfriend's achievement.

"That Morgan Edge guy sounds like he was a real piece of work." Alex says, an oddly out of place smirk on her face as she flips the steaks and ribs and adds a generous brushing of BBQ glaze to everything

"He is, yeah, but he'll slip up eventually. They always do. Then, he'll end up behind bars where he belongs."

"He deserves to end up in the toilet, like every other piece of shit." Alex's smirk goes damn near feral, and Kara bursts out in borderline hysterical laughter behind them.

While Clark can't say he approves of the language--and he does have to take a moment and remind himself that Alex is an adult now, not the little eight-year old he'd first met or the surly teenager he'd last seen, and if he snaps out a chastising "Language!" there's a good chance that Alex will find a way to cause him real, physical pain--he can't disagree with the sentiment.

The meat doesn't need much longer on the grill to be perfectly cooked, and Alex sends Kara off to the kitchen to make sure the corn and potatoes are done while Clark and Eliza make idle small talk. Then, Alex piles the assortment of meat onto a massive serving platter and carries it to the dining room table. Everything in there smells delicious and his stomach lets out a ravenous rumble of appreciative anticipation.

"Alright, everybody dig in," Alex declares after they've taken their seats, and there's no hesitation from either Kryptonian as their hands dart out with no small measure of super-speed to fill their plates. Flying across the country is hungry work, okay? Alex braves the the risk of accidentally losing a hand to an errrant display of power to serve her mother and then herself.

Clark takes a hearty bite, stripping a thick chunk of tender meat from bone. The sweetness of the barbecue sauce compliments the savory ribs, the faintest taste of hickory from the smoke popping on his tongue. Involuntarily, a low groan of pure pleasure slips past his lips.

"This is better than any cow I ever had on the farm," he compliments honestly.

"It's the marinade," Alex tells him. "You've gotta soak the meat for at least a day, two is better. Really lets it absorb the flavor, so it doesn't taste like beef at all."

It doesn't taste like beef, that's true enough. In fact, he's pretty sure there's a distinct porky flavor. When he points that out, it's Kara who answers.

"Pork bone broth is one of the main components. Alex spent all day prepping it for the marinade," she informs him, smiling proudly at her sister.

"Well, it was certainly worth it!" Clark admits freely, moving on to cutting into his massive steak. His knife shears through the medium-well meat, the perfect amount of pink peeking out from beneath the sear. "Oh, geeze, it that bourbon?"

"It adds a nice Edge." Alex takes a vicious bite of her own, slightly rarer steak. Dribbles of blood diluted by fat leaking onto the plate.

Clark is sure that, between the four of them, they demolish an entire cow that night.

When Alex presents him with a previously hidden steak boxed up to go in Tupperware for him to take back to Lois, he decides that maybe she's starting to warm up to him. He flies home to his city and his girlfriend feeling full and happy to have made some progress in mending that old fence between himself and his cousin and his cousin's foster sister.

The part where Lois steals his phone to call up Alex to proposition a threesome between as repayment, however, he could have done without.


	3. Winn Schott Jr

Winn is aware that, really, he doesn't have a chance with Kara Danvers. She's so pretty and sweet and this kind of clumsy-awkward-accidentally funny that he's sure that better looking men who are way more suave than he will ever be are probably lining up around the block for the moment she deigns to date them. And while he has spent enough time on tumblr to know that the friendzone is not a real thing, that her obvious, platonic interest in him doesn't immediately translate into subtle, romantic interest--that he doesn't "deserve" a date or a relationship just because he's a nice guy and her friend and he's interested--he can't help but get a little excited when she invites him over for dinner.

It's not a date. Probably. Just two coworkers, two friends, eating a meal together. At her house.

It might be a date.

He really wants it to be a date.

So, maybe, he spent a little extra time getting ready. Maybe his hair is immaculately styled. Maybe he brushed his teeth twice. Maybe he overdressed, his slacks and button-up ironed within an inch of their lives. Maybe he's wearing his lucky socks, the black ones with tiny Star Destroyers and angry red lightsabers, because he's worn them on every one of his first dates that had a second. (The fact that he's worn them on a couple of first dates that didn't and twice where he didn't even get to the first, skews the data set, but they are still, statistically, more lucky than not.)

He takes three slow, even breaths that do nothing to calm his hummingbird beating heart, wipes the pooling, cold sweat from his hands off on his pants, and lifts a hand to knock. Hesitates, considers, puts the hand not raised into his pocket in an approximation of casual that he's seen other people pull off effortlessly, and then follows through on making contact with the door.

He can do this.

It's probably not even a date. And if it is, well, damn, then she asked him and that means she likes him and that's a good thing.

The door swings open, and it's definitely not a date. Winn knows this because if it were a date, it would just be him and Kara, alone, having dinner. And it isn't Kara who opens the door, so it's not a date. The breath he had been holding in anticipation leaks out of him with a truly bizarre mix of disappointment and relief.

The woman before him is beautiful. Chin-length auburn hair. Deep, dark eyes. Elegant bone structure. A jaw line sharp enough to gut him like a fish. Shoulders, biceps, and forearms with coils of muscle like a python primed to strike visible in her plain black tank-top.

"Um, hi?" Winn tries, because he's never been the smoothest operator in the world around pretty ladies and this person makes it at least one more gorgeous girl than he was expecting tonight. "I'm Winn. Winn Schott, Jr. I'm looking for Kara? Do I have the wrong house. Oh, god, I have the wrong house."

The utterly unimpressed and unamused look on the woman's face is mortifying. The silence stretches on, and on, and on, and she doesn't say anything, so Winn doesn't say anything. This is a awkward, oh god, he's going to die. He should just...go. This is the wrong apartment, he should back up, away, check the address Kara had given him. Or, maybe call her and say that he's too embarrassing to live and he has to cancel dinner so he can find a convenient hole in the Earth to swallow him.

"Alex, stop torturing Winn and let him in before he has a panic attack!" The heavenly voice of his savior calls from deeper inside the apartment, and Winn relaxes so abruptly there's a very good chance his knees go weak and he sways like a man who never properly learned how to walk. Or stand, as the case may be.

The woman, Alex apparently, turns just enough so that there's room for him to step into the apartment, expression unwavering, and gestures him in with a jerk of her head. She raise one eyebrow, slowly, regally, terrifyingly, at his moment of deep, frightened hesitation, and Winn darts in before he somehow makes this worse. Winn swallows thickly and wipes his hands on his pants again, faux-casual hand out of the pocket in case he has to run for his life or try and cover his face or something.

Alex closes the door behind him with, what he considers to be, an ominous click of latch and jam. Winn swallows again, the hair on the back of his neck prickling and goosebumps erupting across his skin. Alex steps around where he's hovering in the door way, slipping further into the house without a word or sound, even with the heavy combat boots he can see on her feet.

It is truly, deeply unsettling.

Thankfully, as Winn is shuffling into the living room with wide eyes and shaking hands, Kara appears out of a hallway. She smiles, big and bright, at him, and Winn forces himself to push aside any misgivings about that Alex woman; she's Kara's friend, and

Kara is the kindest person he knows. She wouldn't be friends with a bad person. It was probably just nerves from the not-a-date spiking and making him over-react.

"Hey, Winn!" Kara greets him as cheerfully in her own home as she does every morning at Catco. "You look sharp tonight."

"Thanks. George just like to look pretty sometimes." Winn finds himself saying and, then, immediately regretting. A flicker of confusion flits across Kara's face, but that's not so unusual. Kara misses a lot of references, from everyone, and it's not like that movie is particularly recent or anything. "You look great."

She does. Kara is a vision in a pretty red dress with white polka dots and a red cardigan of a similar shade, her hair pulled up in some style of braided up-do that Winn doesn't know the name of but looks amazing. It's not much different than what she usually wears to work, in fact, he's pretty sure she's worn this exact outfit to the office before. But there's something more in the sense of ease about her here, in her home and away from Cat's unending demands and constant flurry of nearly panicking coworkers. A lack of tension in her surprisingly broad shoulders. The gentle openness around her eyes instead of a worried, concentrated squint. A softer, impossibly more gentle, smile curling her lips.

"Thanks!" Kara's eyes flit over his shoulder, then, and her smile grows both wider and brighter. He honestly did not think that was possible; there's a reason the office calls her Sunny Danvers. "Alex! You're not dressed?"

Winn whips around and, sure enough, there is the mysterious Alex. Right behind him. Like invading his personal space, right behind him. The tiny, high pitched yelp is entirely involuntary and completely not his fault. Alex just does that intimidating eyebrow raise at him again while Kara giggles quietly at his expense.

"I had to finish dinner. Your friend is early."

And, yes, okay, he is. Because he had been nervous and he thought it might, possibly, be a date and he wanted to make a good impression. Seven minutes is the perfect amount of time to be early! It shows that you're invested in the meeting without coming across as grossly over-eager! He ran the numbers and made a chart!

"It's three minutes to seven," Kara reasonably points out. Thank you, Kara.

"And that's about two minutes longer than I need to put on a damn shirt, Kara." Alex rolls her eyes and moves past them and heading down the hallway Kara had come from moments ago without another word.

Kara's eyes follow after her for a moment before returning her attention back to him. Winn smiles weakly because that pervasive feeling of unease is back in him again. "She seems..." Terrifying. "Interesting?"

"Alex? Yeah, she's the best," Kara says, eyes and smile softer than down feathers. Winn is starting to think that maybe the reason this isn't a date is less because it's not just the two of them, Winn and Kara, and more because it's already just the two of them,

Kara and Alex. "But we're just standing around when we should be sitting at the table. Since she'll be back out in less than a minute." Kara rolls her eyes this time, but Winn knows her well enough to see the blatant affection in the gesture.

He follows her docilely, making the usual kind of idle chit-chat that people do. How's your weekend been? The weather's been great this month, hasn't it? How much do you not want to go into work tomorrow?

Then, sitting a the table already laden with place settings and platters of things that smell amazing, Winn asks, "So, uh, what's for dinner?" Because he was was not expecting anything this fancy, and he feels like maybe he should have brought some wine or dessert or something.

"Oh, it's Sunday. Alex always makes something ridiculously delicious with heart, liver, and kidneys on Sunday--says they're better if we don't freeze them with the rest of the meat--but she hasn't actually told what she's done tonight. Because she's a meanie jerkface person!" The last bit is shouted with more amusement than menace, and clearly more for Alex's information than his.

"Heart?" Winn asks weakly. He's a consummate omnivore and has no problem plowing through beef and pork and chicken, but he doesn't think he's ever eaten an organ before. He hopes he doesn't embarrass himself, or offend, when it comes time to try.

"And hart," Alex says with a chuckle from over his shoulder, appearing behind him silently. Again. He jumps in his seat and prays that this is not the day he has a heart attack.

"Pun!" Kara points enthusiastically at Alex before clarifying, "Alex goes hunting on Fridays and Saturdays. And then makes me yummy, yummy food."

"Venison heart tartare on Kara's crostini as the appetizer, kidney and liver pie with blood sausage for the main course, and Kara made cherry pie for dessert." Alex details the meal in front of them, pointing a the dishes in order.

"Sounds fancy." Winn says, wondering if he remembers the way you're supposed to use all the fancy silverware in what order when eating at expensive restraurants and knowing that he doesn't--he doesn't go to expensive restraurants--before a quick glance down reveals that there's just the arrangement of fork, spoon, knife that he's familiar with.

"Nah." Alex shrugs, pouring herself a glass of something amber. "Just time consuming, really. You should be honored, though. You're the first person besides my mom and her cousin that's ever been invited for Sunday dinner. Kara is usually very possessive of her offal."

"Thank you?" He is, actually, kind of honored. It's not what he was expecting, nor what he quietly half-hoping for, but it is still pretty special. "Thank you."

Kara just smiles and pours a glass of red wine for both him and herself. "You're my best friend, Winn. Of course I invited you."

"Ew, sap." Alex grumbles. "No more touchy-feely bullshit, please."

"Fine." Kara huffs, still smiling, "Feel free to dig in, Winn. The chef is definitely not gonna serve us."

"This is my house, and I'm not a fucking waitress."

Winn grabs a single piece of each of the offerings because he doesn't know if he's going to actually like anything, but he's willing to try. Kara takes about half of everything left after he's served himself, her plate looking perilously full. Alex serves herself last, claiming two tartare appetizers, a hearty slice of the meat pie, and three sausages. Neither of them take a bite, though, despite the damn near predatory gleam in Kara's eye when she looks at the spread. Both of them level him with an expectant look, and it only takes him a second to realize that they're waiting for him to try it before digging in themselves.

He picks up the tartare and takes a delicate bite. Chews carefully, slowly, deliberately. Swallows.

"This... is the best thing that's ever been in my mouth." He would cringe at his terrible phrasing, but he's too busy taking another, larger bite.

"It's the bread," Kara asserts. She takes a massive bite of her own tartare, half the appetizer disappearing behind her teeth.

Winn doesn't know what it is, the balance of flavors is flawless. He can't dissect any one aspect as better than any other. It's too perfect. He might cry, it's so good.

"You always think it's the bread," Alex grumps. Her own bite is carelessly casual, lacking the slow savoring of Winn's or the sheer size of Kara's. "It's like I'm less than chopped liver to you."

"I love you and all the things you do to liver, but right now I'm talking about your heart." Kara shoves a slice of tartare, the whole, entire thing, into her mouth and looks very pleased with herself.

And, hey, now that he's had the heart, and they're talking about liver, Winn is kind of very excited to try that pie.

It is better than the tartare.

How is it better than the tartare?

Winn meets Alex's eyes, fearlessly for the first time tonight. "I want you marry me."

Kara is beautiful and sweet and the best person he knows, but he has no problem abandoning that crush and stealing her girlfriend for this cooking.

Kara bursts out laughing and Alex glares, but that's okay. he is perfectly willing to spend the rest of his life utterly terrified, as long as he can have this pie on the regular.

"Did you just propose to me?"

"Yes, and I meant it." Winn nods with enthusiasm, bravely risking his own untimely murder on the off chance she says yes and he can have this pie every week for the rest of his life. "I will go buy you a ring right now."

"You're lucky that A) I'm not the jealous type and B) I also proposed the first time Alex made this pie, so I completely understand the impluse."

"It was cute when you did it; this is just sad."

"Clark also proposed the first time he had your meat pie."

"And that was horrific in so many ways, not the least of which being the fact that his wife was sitting right next to him."

"Lois proposed a threesome after he gave her that left-over steak, so I'm pretty sure she was okay it."

Winn chokes on his sausage.

"We agreed to never speak of that again," Alex hisses, the tips of her ears turning a furious shade of red and making her look approachably human for the first time that night.

"Yeah, because you get embarrassed every time you remember that you agreed as long as she didn't bring Clark."

"Never. Again. We said."

"Fine, fine. We'll stop talking about the time you wanted to sleep with my cousin-in-law."

"I hate you so much right now. So much," Alex groans. "Change the subject. Please, I beg of you."

Blessedly, for both Alex and Winn, Kara deigns to do so, and the rest of dinner passes without further mentions of threesomes. Thank god. Winn is equipped to talk--ramble, even--about a great many things but the sexapades of his friend and her lover is definitely not one of them.

Winn goes home with a Tupperware container with an extra slice of cherry pie and another with a coil of Alex's homemade blood sausages. Tragically, none of the meat pie survived first contact at the dinner table, or he'd have beggered an additional piece of that, too.

It wasn't the night he'd thought he'd have, the fare he'd thought he'd eat, or the company he'd thought he'd be in, but it was a damn good night just the same.

He hopes he gets invited back soon.


	4. Lucy Lane and James Olsen

Lucy likes Kara, she does. The girl's all smiles and sunshine, sweeter than Southern iced tea. But there's something a little off about her. Something that twigs the part of her that's trained to know when a witness is deflecting on the stand, when a suspect is lying in the interrogation room. Kara presents herself as an open-book, but Lucy is starting to notice that Kara never actually _says_ anything when she talks. Everything is surface level chit-chat, and even some of that is clumsily talked around.

So, Lucy likes Kara, but she's not sure how she feels about her and James' breakfast invitation.

And she can admit, to herself at least, that part of that is that she sees the way James looks at her sometimes. The way he talks about her. It's not Kara's fault. For all the odd and occasionally squirrelly behavior, Lucy has never seen her act any differently towards James than she does Winn. It's not Kara's fault, but Lucy isn't perfect and she doesn't have to blame Kara to want to keep her at a distance from her boyfriend's wandering eye.

Trepidation about spending time in close quarters with James and his blooming crush aside, Lucy couldn't help but agree to go. Kara had been bouncing with enthusiasm when she'd asked them; Lucy couldn't have brought herself to say "no", even if James hadn't said yes almost before Kara had finished issuing the invitation.

So, here they are. Standing outside Kara's house in the artsy/hipster part of town, so they can have Sunday brunch together. The door starts to open, and Lucy braces herself for James to start doing that subtle-but-not-really flirting thing he does around Kara. Only it isn't Kara.

It's the agent from the Red Tornado test. The one who had glared at her and her father like they slaughtered puppies for fun. The one who had carefully and gently patched her up at the DEO after Morrow went rouge and tried to kill her father. The one she knows from the debrief had killed Morrow to stop his machine. Out of her standard issued black uniform and in jeans and a cozy, red sweater.

What. The. Fuck.

"Hey, Alex." James greets her easily, but cautiously. Like he knows her, but he isn't sure he likes her.

Again, _the fuck_?

"James." Alex's greeting, on the other hand, is coldly impersonal. "And Major Lane."

"Agent..." Lucy trails off, because she doesn't actually know her name. And, in hindsight, that's suspicious as hell, the way Henshaw had so carefully avoided using her name at any point during any of their interactions. Even for a shady, off the books, officially nonexistent black ops agency, that's some next level extra shady shit.

"Danvers." Alex informs her with a hint of a smirk and a truly impressive arch of her eyebrow. "But it's just Alex when I'm at home."

And, _oh_. Okay.

Lucy feels simultaneously better and worse that apparently James has been sniffing around a married woman. Better, because if Agent Alex Danvers is the competition, there _is_ no competition. Worse, because her idiot boyfriend is _sniffing around a married woman_.

"Uh, so how do you guys know each other?" James's eyes are bouncing between them, bemusement all over his face.

"That's classified." Danvers drawls, unconcerned. "The FBI isn't in the habit of disclosing information to the press. I'm sure the Army isn't either."

FBI is a good cover, Lucy has to agree. Though Lucy can't help but wonder whether or not Kara knows the truth. She shouldn't, because the point of top secret black ops agencies is that they are, by definition, top secret. But it would also explain the way Kara acts sometimes, trying to keep a secret that she's not supposed to know while working for the largest media conglomerate in the world under one of the most perceptive and cut-throat reporters to ever put pen to paper.

"You're not wrong." James laughs, sounding forced and fake.

"But we're not here for work," Lucy breaks in to get the ball rolling again. "We're here for brunch with a friend."

"Come on in," Danvers says, opening the door more fully and swinging her arm out in a sweeping gesture. "Kara's in the kitchen, pretending to keep an eye on the bread."

"Pretending?"

"She just wants to steal all the prosciutto and Parmigiano Reggiano apps, then act like she has no idea how we ran out of cheese."

"I heard that, you lying liar!" The sound of Kara's voice calls from somewhere further inside the house. "We both know _you_ ate all the appetizers!"

Danvers shrugs and shouts back, "You can't prove that!"

She looks different like this. Here, in her home, with her wife, she seems far removed from cold and clinical Agent Alex Danvers.

The three of them amble into the Danverses' living room as Kara makes her grand entrance.

"Hey, James, Lucy!" Kara darts over to give both of them hugs, then turns to her wife. "So, we're out of cheese."

"You're awful, I hate you." Alex drawls without inflection, heading out of the room before adding over her shoulder, "I hid spare block in the basement fridge, because I know you and you're a monster."

"Rude! You love me!" Kara shouts at her retreating back, then turns her attention to her guests. "Ignore Alex. She thinks she's this cool special agent just because she has a gun, but I know the truth. She's a kitten."

"Kittens have claws," Lucy can't help but point out. Because she knows for a fact that Alex has killed people. That Alex killed someone _this month_.

Kara just laughs, a tinkling bell of a sound and shakes her head knowingly. "Of course they do. The trick is to be someone they don't want to use them on."

And, well, Lucy can't really argue with that. 

Kara leads them through the living room into the dining room. There's a warming pan, a hunk of bone-in ham with a platter of fluffy toast, a carafe of coffee, two jugs of orange juice, and the usual accompaniments of butter/jam/sugar/creamer waiting for them on the table.

"Oh, wow." James says in his I Am Very Impressed voice, the one that always makes Lucy grit her teeth because he just sounds _so patronizing_ even if he's generally being genuine. "I was expecting, like, a buffet of Noonen's pastries, to be honest."

Kara cocks her head to the side like an adorably confused golden retriever. "Then I would have just invited you guys to Noonen's?"

"Right," James laughs. "That makes sense."

"Here comes Alex. Sit anywhere you'd like and feel free to start helping yourselves." 

Lucy wonders if Kara has some kind of Alex Danvers sixth sense, since the agent makes exactly zero noise as she comes into the the room with a hefty block of cheese. Maybe it's the kind of thing that develops after you get married. Kara doesn't flinch when Alex sinks a knife that she appears to have _manifested out of nowhere_ into the cheese. James, on the other hand absolutely jumps, and Lucy is guilty of a _slight_ startle.

"Jesus," James yelps with wide eyes.

"A kitten, remember?" Kara teases, as if _that_ display could _ever_ conjure the image of a baby cat.

Alex simply begins cutting chunks of cheese free from the block, a look of pleased amusement on her face as she wields the blade with professional, surgical precision. Lucy remembers, belatedly, that though Henshaw had only ever called Danvers "Agent" in front of her, everyone in the infirmary had deferred to her with a crisp, clinical "Doctor".

"Kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day, maybe," Lucy mutters under her breath. Only, it must have been louder than she thought because Kara starts laughing, even as both James and Alex look confused at the reaction.

"I _love_ that meme."

"Oh, murder kitten, yeah." Alex rolls her eyes again. "Stop putting those in my lunchbox; they're traumatizing my lab techs."

"They work at the D-FBI." And that answers the 'did Agent Danvers disclose her classified position to her civilian partner' question. "They should toughen up."

"And people think you're the nice one."

"I _am_ the nice one. I'm the nicest!" Kara protests. "James, tell Alex how nice I am at Catco."

"There have been no murder kittens at Catco," James says loyally.

"Well I know _that's_ a lie," Alex snorts, setting Kara off giggling again.

"Was that a cat pun? Cause Miss Grant will know you made one and then take it out on all of us on Monday," James jokes. It just makes the Danverses laugh harder.

"Please, this one," Kara jerks her thumb at Alex. "would eat Miss Grant for breakfast."

Lucy is pretty sure she hears Alex mumble something that sounds suspiciously like "if only".

"No one is eating. I am fundamentally offended by this fact," Kara says when she reigns in her laughter. "Sit, sit, eat."

"Drink, be merry." Alex drolls, sliding into the chair at the head of the table as Kara rushes about whipping off the warmer's lid and carving a long, thin ribbon of the ham. The strip of meat is quickly parced into smaller portions, wrapped around bits of cheese, and handed out in bite-sized starters around the table.

Lucy hasn't had prosciutto this good in years. Or, possibly, ever.

"Okay," she says, after swallowing, "I need to know where you bought this."

"Alex made it herself!" Kara chirps, beaming with pride. "Alex made everything on the table, actually, except for the cheese." 

"And the bread. Kara made the bread."

"I did!"

Which is when Lucy notices what's included in "everything". 

"Are those..._brains_?"

"And eggs!" Kara is disturbingly happy at the prospect of eating brains. Like, Lucy's been to a lot of places and eaten a lot of things most people would consider exotic, but she can honestly say that brains are not on that list.

Until today, apparently.

"Great," James says with a smile so forced it's hurting _Lucy's_ cheeks just looking at it. "Never had brains before..."

"You're in for a treat then." Kara says, spooning an incredibly large amount of said brains and eggs onto her plate and snatching up four slices of golden-brown toast.

"I'm sure." Lucy avoids eye contact by pouring cups of coffee for James and herself while James sets about serving them small portions of brains and extra toast. Just in case.

Alex takes the carafe after Lucy, poring herself a mug, and then filling a large glass with orange juice that she immediately passes to Kara. Who has, somehow, already chowed down on approximately half her food. 

"Kara, slow down. Breath. Chew." Alex sighs, scooping up a modest serving of each of the offerings onto her plate. "Actually _taste_ the food."

"But it's so good!" Kara pouts, but she does seem to listen and slow down.

Mustering her courage, Lucy digs her fork into the brains and brings it to her mouth.

Oh. Oh, okay. That's...that's not bad. That's not bad at all.

James, seeing her brave the first bite and not hate it, takes one of his own. Lucy wonders if she had a similar face journey when she tried it.

Alex is smirking at them over the rim of her mug, like she knows what they were thinking and how wrong she just proved them with a single bite. The smug piece of shit.

"Not gonna lie, I was not expecting to like this," James tells Kara with a soft smile smile, "but I should have known better than to doubt you when it comes to food."

Kara beams at him, mouth stuffed full and cheeks bulging like a particularly cute chipmunk. Gods, Lucy wishes she could hate her. It would be so much easier if she could. She makes do with elbowing James in the ribs to remind him to stop making fucking heart-eyes at his married friend in front of her _wife_ and his _girlfriend_.

"It's pretty good," is all Lucy's willing to concede, given Danvers' smugness. 

Lucy is surprised to find herself oddly comfortable. Sure, she's having brunch with her boyfriend's crush and an agent that Lucy wouldn't hesitate to consider hostile in their professional lives, but the food is good and the conversation is light. James is keeping his mooning to a minimum. Danvers is perfectly cordial, if not especially friendly. Kara is, as always, a bright ray of sunshine.

It's far from the worst morning she's ever had. It's not even the worst _brunch_ she's ever had; that dubious honor belongs to an attempt at mending family fences and had involved her father, Lois, Clark, and the General wearing Lois' omlette. 

All in all, Lucy enjoys herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, yes, Kara has been abusing her artistic talent to create truly terrifying renditions of the murder kitten meme, usually ones that less than subtly hint at whomever Alex has killed most recently, that she then tapes to the inside of Alex's lunchbox. Everyone in Alex's lab is absolutely horrified by then. Alex, on the other hand, lowkey loves them and keeps them at her desk. Because she may be a murderous cannibal, but she's still So Soft for her alien.


End file.
